Hey, Hey Woody Guthrie — We Celebrate Your Music, But We Do Not Celebrate Your Politics

Yesterday’s Arts section of the New York Times contained an interesting report about the status of Woody Guthrie, the Dust Bowl balladeer, in his native Oklahoma. Reporter Patricia Cohen writes that “Oklahoma has always had a troubled relationship with her native son Woody Guthrie. The communist sympathies of America’s balladeer infuriated local detractors.” Note those words, “communist sympathies”; evidently, Guthrie had some kind of innocuous sympathies, perhaps those of a naïve fellow traveler, but not those of a self-proclaimed hard-nosed Red. As one resident of Guthrie’s hometown Okema who loved Guthrie told Cohen, Guthrie had been “kind of taboo because some influential people thought Woody Guthrie had communist leanings.” The implication, as you can see, is that those attitudes were the ill-informed opinions of old school Red-baiters from the ’30s.

Now, after years of denial, Oklahoma is ready to welcome Woody home. The story reports on how The George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa has bought Guthrie’s archives from his children, and are “building an exhibition and study center to honor his legacy.” It will include his notebooks and diaries, art work, letters, scrapbooks, and the like, including the lyrics of 3000 songs to which he never had the chance to write music. It cost George Kaiser some $3 million to undertake the project. We also learn that Kaiser is, as Cohen reports, “one of the richest men in Oklahoma,” a man whomade his millions from the Kaiser-Francis Oil Company.

Kaiser, in other words, is just the kind of capitalist the Communists always yell about — an exploiter of both the workers and our country’s natural resources. If you read the Wikipedia entry about him, you will find that his net worth in 2008 was some $12 billion, although his current net worth has dropped to a paltry $9 billion in today’s downward economy. He is still the richest man in Oklahoma (who also lives half time in San Francisco) but no longer one of the 20 richest in America, having slipped only to a tie for the 43rd richest person in the world!

Yes, Kaiser does good things with his wealth. He gives his money to causes like childhood education and the Oklahoma Jewish community. But he is also evidently part of the left wing of the Democratic Party, a man who argued before Oklahoma’s legislature that tax incentives for the oil and gas industry should be eliminated or reduced, and the money be used instead for health care, education, and tax cuts for regular people. (He did not, as you might expect, make that argument as he was accumulating his riches.) As you might expect, Mr. Kaiser was also one of Barack Obama’s “bundlers” in the 2008 election campaign, as well as a major investor in — you guessed it — Solyndra! (A bundler, as the Wikipedia entry explains, is “an individual who collects contributions to a candidate from others that are then simultaneously given to the candidate.”)

The entry also shows how carefully Mr. Kaiser gamed the market:

An article by the nonpartisan and open government organization Sunlight Foundation‘s Bill Allison has analyzed Kaiser’s business activities and his use of legal tax avoidance strategies, including how during the 1980s bust in the oil industry in Oklahoma and Texas. Kaiser bought up struggling energy companies whose losses provided him with tax deductions that effectively offset his own income and left him with little or no tax liability.

The report says Kaiser paid no taxes to the federal government for years and that when he did pay taxes, just once in a six-year period, it was just under $11,700, meaning he paid taxes on a taxable wage of $5.62 per hour. The report comes from the Sunlight Foundation’s Bill Allison. Allison’s post indicates many experts, including the IRS, believe Kaiser’s tax strategies were illegal.

To put it a bit differently, were Woody Guthrie still alive, I could imagine the expletives that would appear as he took pen to paper to blast away at how a capitalist in Oklahoma named Kaiser made a killing while regular people took the brunt. His response would have been a bit different than that of his daughter Nora, who told Cohen: “I cried for an hour after meeting George Kaiser,” since he had put “together what I’ve always dreamed of.” Absolutely Nora — on the backs of the working class. He, according to Marx whom Woody believed in, made his money from the surplus value generated by the labor power of the Oklahoma proletariat.

43 Comments, 19 Threads

Great piece, Ron. One thinks of the millions of Russians and others who were killed by Stalin and his henchmen, for whom Guthrie, Seeger, et al, never wrote a song (with or without music). When Joan Baez managed to feel sorry for the boat people trying to escape from Communist Vietnam after it was conquered by North Vietnam, she was roundly lambasted by the Left. But other than that and a few works of other ex-commies, with the very important example of yourself, most of the Left has remained quiet all these years about their worship of the greatest mass murderer in history and their destructive anger at those who pointed it out.

Anyone who calls Woody a Commie is part of the renewal of the Red Scare or McCarthyism. I am sure that Patricia Cohen, no relative, was wary of so being smeared. The Times must have a silent but acknowledged policy of not naming names or pointing fingers at those who believed in the false utopia of the USSR and all its puppet states of sorrow and suffering.

A couple of years ago I attended a re-union of the Elizabeth Irwin High School that you and I went to – and many years later did Nora Guthrie. She was there and spoke about her work with Woody’s heritage – songs et al. I had my guitar with me sitting in the audience and when she was through, I struck up, yes, you guessed it, “This Land Is Your Land” – I did as a tribute to Woody and to her work in keeping his memory alive. Totally no one sang, except my wife, also named Patricia Cohen, and the Principal of the school and Nora Guthrie just stared at me. This was not in the program they planned. True to their self-righteous stiff left-wing faith they would not participate in an unplanned singing out of Woody’s most famous and beloved song. For me it was one more example of the Left’s complete intolerance for anything that strays from their political and cultural lines, even when it is one of their own.

As one reads the bios of Woody you cite in your piece, one is stunned by the didactic and super-angry lyrics that came out of Woody. Some of the anger did lead him to write a couple of great songs – Pastures of Plenty, If You Ain’t Got the Do Re Me – and his outrageous anger at Irving Berlin for writing “God Bless America” did lead to the originally titled: “God Blessed America for Me”. But we can now say, and should have earlier said, that his anger was to a great extent, misplaced and absurd. This is a country we all (rich, middle class, poor) built together. Crimes against society have been and continue to be committed by folks of all classes. But nothing the “1%” may or may not have done, compares to the mass murder of the Commie Reformers and Revolutionaries – therefore, as folks say nowadays: Hello!

One last piece of gossip – many decades ago I had a girlfriend who was a friend of Margery Guthrie (the mother of Arlo, Nora, and …. (sorry remembering names is one of my long last talents). She told me that Margery had told her, “never marry a folksinger!” (which I was).

Woody was a complicated (as we all are) figure – with talent, humor, anger, tunnel vision, and a whole bunch of other stuff – baggage they call it nowadays. I agree with you, we should call a Communist a Communist with all that means. And laugh at the irony of the Soros-type Kaiser (related to Wilhelm?) giving some of his billions to a man who really did or would have hated him for having them – or maybe, just maybe, Woody would have learned something from this man’s generosity and become a bit less one-dimensional then sadly he was much of the time.

Last piece of irony, Woody’s dad was a business man and a Republican and his parents named him Woodrow Wilson Guthrie. Woody, as was the commie-line, romanticized the “common man” beyond reality while pulverizing the rich man. Well, now in OKlahoma the rich man has brought him home – I hope he pays the workers who will build it a working wage or otherwise we will have to occupy it and protest and sing: “the rich man took my home and drove me from my door, and I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.” (One of Woody’s best borrowed from a beautiful Christian hymn – irony up irony!)

Bob, I wonder if you knew Pat Foster, probably best known for his talking blues recordings, though he could do a great variety of other kinds of folk numbers. (He could learn to sing and play a new song on his blonde f-hole guitar in about ten seconds.)
A long time ago now I spent a lot of free time with him for about a year or so around Monterey, California. Last I heard of him he was working construction around Frisco.

Nice article Mr. Radosh and true enough. One thing you might consider if interested is talking to Bob Dillon about Woody. Bob Dillon according to his book spent time with Woody Guthrie, when Woody was hospitalized in New Jersey. From Dillon’s book it is very evident that Bob Dillon idolized Mr. Guthrie for his music, perhaps not his views, but for his style and abilities. Mr. Dillon seemed to have some perception of the things you speak of. If Mr. Dillon is willing to talk it could be very interesting. Regardless thanks for the informative article.

Great piece! I once had a casette tape, dating myself, that I’d assembled of all the old Guthrie labor-related protest and union organizing songs. We always found it interestingly ironic that we lackeys of the capitalists that represented the employer knew the old union songs better than any of the union reps we dealt with.

I once structured a whole labor board hearing around “Which Side Are You On, Boys,” not a Guthrie but in the same genre and a powerful old organizing song. ‘Course, I was twisting it and using it to my benefit in a petition to take a group of “confidential” employees out from coverage by our bargaining law. I used the song’s lyrics to demonstrate the divided loyalties that unionization caused them. The union, trying to keep the members, didn’t much appreciate. Won the case before the labor board but the election intervened while it was on appeal to the SC, and the union’s new bought and paid for Democrat governor dropped the case and put them back in the union, where they remain to this day despite my best efforts.

And as to the communist thing, everyone should follow the comments on Dr. Hanson’s current piece and the one before to see how Lefties shriek when you call them and their heroes communists or point out Comrade Obama’s communist background.

“…singing these rebel songs allow the wealthy children of today’s upper middle class to feel good about themselves, to go on making money from the system they despise, while pretending they are still revolutionaries as they get a thrill singing along with everyone else about how ‘The Banks Are Made of Marble.’”

I think I respect Guthrie a bit more than some of his acolytes because he seemed to wear his communist credentials openly and with pride. Whether he was a *real* communist or only *thought* he was a communist or only *sympathized* with communism, you still knew exactly where he was coming from.

People like Seeger – I get the impression they were trying to sneak communism into the popular culture disguised as old-fashioned Americana. Maybe they just had to go crypto because of the Cold War. Either way, I never quite trust them. Here’s ol’ Pete playin’ his banjo and singin’ “Jimmy crack corn & I don’t care.” Is he sharing his love of folk music with me or is he trying to remind me that America is a racist country but wouldn’t be if communists were in charge?

Read “Commies”, a book by Mr. Radosh, for more info. It is a real eye-opener. I also highly recommend his “Red Star Over Hollywood”. Among other things, he recounts how the great Dalton Trumbo was excoriated by his Communist comrades for his “white chauvinism”, the “political correctness” of his day. You can preview them both with Amazon’s “look inside” feature.

Good article. I have to say however, unlike Pete Seeger, I still kind of respect and like Woody Guthrie. In the early days of the labor movement, before BIG UNION, I think he believed in and worked for the cause of working people getting a fair shake and living a better life and was misguided about the true nature of communism. I agree he would be, at best, amused if not outraged by Kaiser. Then again I could be wrong.

In the Great Depression before World War II, with an unemployment rate of 20%, millions of struggling Americans were having doubts about the viability of the American system. And the U.S.S.R. had acquired a certain moral cachet with its constant emphasis on the working class and its calls to oppose the rise of Fascism. The Soviets carefully concealed their true nature, of course.

So I don’t blame anyone in the 1930s for thinking that perhaps socialism was the wave of the future after the U.S. economy seemed to have collapsed.

For some leftists, the turning point was the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1940, when the U.S.S.R. allied itself with the Fascists it had spent the last 10 years denouncing. For other Leftists it was the Soviet crushing of the Hungarian uprising in 1956. The Soviets lost most of their admirers and even a few of their agents in the U.S. after that.

Anyone in the West who continued to be an avowed Communist after 1956, I have absolutely no sympathy for and no use for.

I don’t disagree. He may have been a useful idiot but he still deserves some respect for his best work, especially Bound for Glory. Injustice is injustice, afterall, whether it’s pointed out by a communist or not. It is unfortunate that he did not speak to the ultimate injustice that communism turned out to be. Guthrie was ill, however, from well before 1956 until his death in 1967. I’d like to think that, being an honest man (unlike Seeger), he would have come to see the truth about communism had he lived as long.

During the Great Depression, workers and tenants had none of the safety net protections we have today. If an unemployed worker failed to pay his rent on time, often the landlord not only evicted him, but threw his belongings into the street, after which the worker and his family were homeless. (There was actually an episode of “The Honeymooners” that showed that happening to the Kramdens.)

My parents were children during that era and lived through all that. They told me that the Communist Party USA was one of the few organizations that fought for tenants’ rights back then. Of course, the CPUSA was doing it for entirely cynical reasons–but they were doing it.

The unemployed, the dispossessed, and the homeless had no other recourse.

Thank you, Ron Radosh, for this piece which crystallizes my thoughts on a favorite singer / songwriter of mine! My paternal grandmother was born and raised in western Indian Territory, so my interest in Oklahoma culture runs deep. We lived for several years in that region, as well–Beckham County adjoining Roger Mills county (birthplace and childhood home of the late, great Roger Miller–in my view greatly under-appreciated for his talents).

True liberals today would be aghast if they recalled that some of Guthrie’s most creative songs were written as he lauded the Bonneville Dams / locks projects. Politically IN-correct for the environmentally-driven true believers today! I believe that his songs about the dust bowl tap into the deep sadness of those days. Many of these songs, I believe, transcend politics.

Having witnessed the pain of many who lost jobs when their companies folded, it deeply teroubles me to read that George Kaiser bought up many of the small, independent drilling companies during the bust cycle. Those who led and worked for such companies were risk-driven entrepeneurs who, to me, epitomize the spirit of capitalism.

It’s always amazing to realize that the “useful idiots” could also be so talented and creative. We also need to keep in mind, as Mr. Radosh and others usefully remind us, that Stalin was very much in the same league of evil with Hitler. Why, then, do we loathe and execrate Nazis from the ’30s but give Commies from that same era a pass? We shouldn’t, of course, but try putting that in a letter to the Times.

Why, then, do we loathe and execrate Nazis from the ’30s but give Commies from that same era a pass?

Because we smashed Nazi Germany to rubble, and could, if we’d chosen, ground the rubble into dust (read up on the Morgenthau Plan). To be identified as a fascist — as many intellectual thugs manque were in the 1920s and 1930s — was to be identified as a loser whose dreams of lording it over the peasantry had been ripped from his soft, sweaty hands.

If the Soviet Union had been crushed in the same way — if the naked corpse of Stalin had swung by its heels from the Kremlin wall, if Beria had been hung as a war criminal, if Molotov had died in Spandau — we’d have the same contempt for Marxism.

Because the Comintern and the American/Allied Left did a very, very good job of casting the “fascists” as a European-version right wing, monarchist, capitalist, etc. rather than the socialists that the NSDAP and Mussolini’s Fascists actually were. If you have a government school education, even college education, most of what you know about US and European History in the 20th Century is wrong.

Guthrie was probably a member of the open communist party, but if so, he wasn’t a member of the soviet apparatus at the time. They couldn’t risk that high of a profile with any of their membership and kept themselves generally segregated from the indigenous proletarian group, if you will. This article was well researched by Mr Radosh and I wonder if similar research can be done on Barack Obama before anyone starts naming bridges and building museums to his memory.

Just figure out what brought his grandparents and mother first to Seattle and then to Hawaii, both owned by the communist Longshorement under Harry Bridges, how they made their living, and just how they came to have the associations they did, and Comrade Obama’s background will fall into place.

Many Christmases ago, my sweetheart gave me a 3-CD box set of Brice Springsteen and the E Street Band’s live performances. Mr. Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” was one of the songs included. Mr. Springsteen’s spoken introduction to the song went something like this. This song was Woody’s response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America”.

Funny, up until that point, I had never realized, much like Mr. Berlin and most of America, that “God Bless America” was in need of a response. So, long Woody, it’s been good not to know ya. Say “Good Night, Brucie.

“While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer. ”

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.
–Irving Berlin

So you’ve got one song by a poor Russian immigrant and another by a poor “native” Oklahoman.

Irving used his music to fulfill the American Dream. He survived poverty and genocide in Russia, grew up in a New York slum, started singing to make a little extra money, and went on to become a rich and famous composer.

Guthrie used his music to criticize the American Dream. He started out in a relatively prosperous family, became poor through various misfortunes, started singing to make a little extra money, and went on to be a wandering communist labor agitator.

That’s intesting to me. It appears that Irving’s career puts the lie to Guthrie’s anti-capitalist whining. Guthrie might well have followed Irving’s path, perhaps in country music, perhaps becoming another Hank Williams. He wrote excellent lyrics, he could sing and play the guitar and he apparently had a way with people. There was good money in being a “singing hobo” back then. The door was wide open. I’m wondering why he never walked through it.

It appears Springsteen is quoting from Joe Klein, (“Woody Guthrie: A Life”/ “Primary Colors”) for the idea that “This Land is Your Land…” is an angry song, an answer to “God Bless, America”. I also never understood this comment, nor thought that “God Bless, America” needed an ‘answer’.

FYI: If you google “This Land is Your Land…”, you’ll find a Springsteen ‘Live’ version that’s not as good as the one you mention. Also, the intro is different — no reference to “God Bless, America”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yuc4BI5NWU

The 100th birthday celebration of Guthrie will culminate with a Kennedy Center concert next February…. It will end with cheers and the mass singing of “This Land Is Your Land,” so the assembled multitude will feel good about themselves, will go out thinking of themselves as 1930s Okies working the land in California labor camps, and the next day, return to their lobbying jobs on the Hill or their corporate law firms.

There’s an interesting aspect to this remark. After World War II, several years after it had been made, Stalin permitted The Grapes of Wrath to be shown in the Soviet Union. It got a very unexpected reaction from ordinary Soviet citizens: it prompted many viewers to talk about emigrating to the United States! After all, the Joads had their own home, not shared with anyone else, and their own vehicle, far more than the vast majority of people in the Soviet Union could boast. What American filmmakers and activists saw as an indictment of America, Soviet citizens saw as a land of opportunity. The movie was soon pulled from theaters.

Many Merry Christmases ago, my sweetheart gave me a 3-CD box set of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s live performances. One of the songs played was Mr. Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land”. In his spoken introduction to the song, Mr. Springsteen said something to the effect that the song was Mr. Guthrie’s response to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.

Up until that point, I was very much unaware that “God Bless America” was in need of a response.

So long, Woody, it’s been good not to know ya. Say “Good Night,” Brucie.

Or, as the old story goes as told by Seeger, after they heard about the signing in Moscow of the pact between Hitler and Stalin: One day at Almanac House, the name given to the community dwelling they lived in during the days before and after the announcement of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Woody came in and said, referring to their recent album of anti-war songs, “Meet John Doe”: “Well, I guess we won’t be singing anti-war songs anymore.” And so they did not, quickly penning new ballads in support of FDR and military intervention on the side of the Soviet Union. The group also gave up singing those militant union songs that made them famous, as in their album “Talkin’ Union,” since the one thing the Soviets did not want was strikes that interfered with war production.

You’ve telescoped two things here. The antiwar songs started with the Hitler-Stalin Pact, true—indeed, I have a Communist pocket-sized songbook from that Hitler-Stalin Pact interregnum, with the lyrics of a song rubberstamped on the blank pages in back. The song, “Why Do You Stand There in the Rain?”, is a feeble bid to be the WWII-era “I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be a Soldier.”

The antiwar songs stopped, not with the Hitler-Stalin Pact, but when Hitler violated the Pact and attacked the Soviet Union. From that point on, all of the antiwar stuff was out the window, because Mother Russia was in danger and the US, not yet in the war, had to be brought in on the Soviet Union’s side.

Yep, on June 21, 1941, the communists and their fellow travellers were sabotaging war production in England and preaching non-intervention in the US. On June 22, 1941, they were shouting “Second Front Now” at the top of their newly bellicose lungs.

Yes indeed. I was guilty of sloppy writing. “Meet John Doe” was released a few days before the German invasion of Soviet Russia. It was quickly taken off the market, and within a few weeks, The Almanac Singers released a new group of pro-war and pro-intervention songs. Most well known is “Dear Mr. President,” in which Seeger sings “We haven’t always agreed on things,” and ends by saying “I’m ready to trade in my banjo for something that makes a bit more noise.”

The Netflix website lists 64 reviews of Guthrie’s movie bio, made in the 1970′s by Hal Ashby. Guess how many of them mention Guthrie’s Communist sympathies? Zero. That wouldn’t be possible if the movie gave this fact of Guthrie’s career an honest depiction, so I suppose Ashby airbrushed that out the same way the Soviet Encyclopedia erased inconvenient people from historical photographs.

I read a post on PJ that recalled a lyric from “this land” that used the words ‘ I got a shotgun and you ain’t got one’. Can anyone provide a link or explanation for this? I haven’t found a reference to it and I’m sure that it does exist. Thanks, Tom